REGULATING DEEPFAKES IN NIGERIA: ASSESSING THE ADEQUACY OF THE EXISTING CYBERCRIME FRAMEWORK

Generative artificial intelligence now enables the cheap fabrication of audio, images and videos of real people. Nigeria has been the scene of a range of such abuse, from a cloned-voice clip preceding the 2023 elections to deepfakes of the President and of Peter Obi from 2024 to 2026. This article examines the adequacy of Nigeria’s cybercrime law to regulate deepfakes, based on four stages of their life: acquisition, synthesis, dissemination and consequence and four criteria of evaluation: rule clarity, institut…

By the Truvace deskOctober 17, 20262 min read1 sourcePeer-reviewedTRV-2026-1672· cite & verify

In brief

A doctrinal legal study examined whether Nigeria's existing laws can regulate deepfakes. It reviewed the Cybercrimes Act 2015 (as amended in 2024), the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, the Evidence Act 2011 (as amended 2023) and constitutional privacy, assessing each across four stages of a deepfake's life and four evaluation criteria.

The findings matter because generative AI makes it cheap to fabricate audio, images and video of real people, and the article cites Nigerian cases including a cloned-voice clip before the 2023 elections. The law reaches some deepfake harms, but significant gaps remain. Whether the recommended reforms would be adopted or work in practice is not shown in the text.

Main points

The study evaluates four stages of a deepfake's life: acquisition, synthesis, dissemination and consequence.
Four evaluation criteria were applied: rule clarity, institutional responsibility, enforceability and remedy.
The cybercrime law covers fraud, impersonation and child sexual abuse imagery deepfakes, and arguably sexual deepfakes.
Identified gaps include no definition of synthetic media, no offence of non-consensual synthesis, no takedown duty and no evidence authentication rules.
Recommended reforms include labeling duties, victim-focused remedies, forensic capacity-building and alignment with national AI governance.

The problem

Nigeria's cybercrime framework offers no definition of synthetic media, no offence of non-consensual synthesis, no takedown duty and no rules for authenticating electronic evidence, leaving deepfake victims with limited protection.

The rundown

The article uses a qualitative doctrinal method. It tests the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015 as amended in 2024, the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023, the Evidence Act 2011 as amended in 2023, and constitutional privacy against deepfake scenarios.

Nigeria is described as the scene of varied deepfake abuse, from a cloned-voice clip preceding the 2023 elections to deepfakes of the President and of Peter Obi between 2024 and 2026.

On coverage, existing law addresses fraud, impersonation and child sexual abuse imagery deepfakes, and arguably sexual deepfakes. It lacks a definition of synthetic media and offences for non-consensual synthesis or for possession and distribution of synthetic media.

The author recommends statutory reform focused narrowly on deepfakes, including labeling duties, victim-focused remedies, forensic capacity-building and harmony with national-level AI governance.